BLÆÐI: obsidian pieces / Iceland Dance Company (Reykjavík)

Iceland Dance Company returns with the award winning show BLÆÐI: obsidian pieces. A unique evening of dance, staging the works of Erna Ómarsdóttir, Damien Jalet and Sidi LarbiCherkaoui. The show premiered in May at the 29th Reykjavik Arts Festival and received raving reviews from both critics and the general public. Because of high demand BLÆÐI: obsidian pieces returns as a part of Lókal/RDF 2015

Les Médusées by Damien Jalet (7 min)

Originally choreographed for the Louvre Museum in Paris, this female trio is inspired by the bewitching natureof the statues of nymphes in the Marly courtyard. A polyphonic rhythmic partition, reminiscent of the sound of a sculpting burin hitting the marble, gives birth to a haunting dance of fluidity and petrification.

Babel (words) takes its starting point at the specific moment in the tale of the Tower of Babel when God punishes those who built a tower in his name, causing chaos by splintering them into different languages, cultures and lands. Babel (words) is the third part of a triptych that began with Foi and Myth and has taken the world by storm.

Sin and The Evocation are two pieces that grew out of Babel (words) and have gained a life of their own.

Sin is a sensual yet powerful duet, inspired by the myth of the primordial couple, their separation and transfer of power.

The Evocation is a contemporary interpretation of a Zikr, a Sufi ritual where the repetition of one word is used to cast off a spell.

Black Marrow by Erna Ómarsdóttir and Damien Jalet (56 min)to the original music by Ben Frost

Balm of god or devil’s excrement? What is this black blood, pumping thought the veins of our industrialised world? Which mythology inhabits it? How greatly will it irreversibly metamorphose us and our relationship with our surroundings? How addicted to it are we? How far will we go to satisfy our needs for it? Are we the oil of the future?

Erna Ómarsdóttir and Damien Jalet started off with these questions when creating the first version of Black Marrow in Australia in 2009. They have now further evolved the piece with the dancers of Iceland Dance Company. Acknowledging the ancestral spiritual bond of man and nature, Ómarsdóttir and Jalet invent a contemporary ritual. Exploring with the dancers the energy of an archaic trance to depict a world where instincts have been industrialized, where the body transforms, mutates, exults and fights for its survival. Using rhythm, repetition and exhaustion to the haunting music by Ben Frost, the dancers take the shape of fossils, industrial machines, pagan gods and carefree golden youth. Every ritual has a function - trance often has a healing one. Black Marrow acts like a deformed mirror, a shaded reflection of our contemporary relationship to the planet. A poetic attempt to save it ...or to save ourselves.